This story starts 2 weeks ago and seeing as how it’s a 2 week long story, split into 3 parts. Bear with me.
Stephani, Julie and I decided to forego the street we usually venture down and went to a different section of bars. We begin to walk through, noticing that they are quite quiet compared to the rest of the street, which we correlate with the Thai boxing match that is taking place on the second level. Having no inclination on where to go, we decide to pray our way through the bars, in hopes that God would show us where we needed to be. I take 2 steps into the bar area and am confronted by some women that work at one of the bars. “Where you from?” they ask. “The US,” I respond. She yells something over her shoulder to an older man sitting at the bar, who proceeds to holler “SUPERBOWL!!!!” while throwing his hands in the air signaling a touchdown. If that’s not an in, I don’t know what is. So I walk over and begin conversing with him. Stephani and Julie realize what’s going on and join me moments later. He offers us seats at the bar and offers to buy us a drink. During the next hour, this man shares his life with Julie and I. We command his attention as he regales us with stories from his work (he’s a diver for an oil company), what to do in Malaysia (KL is the place to be) and Singapore, and what he does in Thailand (when not diving, he runs a hotel/restaurant not far from the bar we met him at).
While this is all taking place, Stephani has a conversation of her own with one of the girls who works there. When our Cokes are gone, and the hour has passed, we decide to begin the awkward “it’s-time-to-leave-now-but-I-don’t-know-how-to-get-you-to-stop-talking” episode. We say goodbye to the girl, I’ll call her Daisy for privacy reasons. The man escorts us back to the main road, telling us about his girlfriend who is back in England with her grandchildren for a week, and he gives us some not-needed information on which Go-Go’s are the classiest and trashiest, and sends us on our way.
Stephani, Julie and I decided to forego the street we usually venture down and went to a different section of bars. We begin to walk through, noticing that they are quite quiet compared to the rest of the street, which we correlate with the Thai boxing match that is taking place on the second level. Having no inclination on where to go, we decide to pray our way through the bars, in hopes that God would show us where we needed to be. I take 2 steps into the bar area and am confronted by some women that work at one of the bars. “Where you from?” they ask. “The US,” I respond. She yells something over her shoulder to an older man sitting at the bar, who proceeds to holler “SUPERBOWL!!!!” while throwing his hands in the air signaling a touchdown. If that’s not an in, I don’t know what is. So I walk over and begin conversing with him. Stephani and Julie realize what’s going on and join me moments later. He offers us seats at the bar and offers to buy us a drink. During the next hour, this man shares his life with Julie and I. We command his attention as he regales us with stories from his work (he’s a diver for an oil company), what to do in Malaysia (KL is the place to be) and Singapore, and what he does in Thailand (when not diving, he runs a hotel/restaurant not far from the bar we met him at). While this is all taking place, Stephani has a conversation of her own with one of the girls who works there. When our Cokes are gone, and the hour has passed, we decide to begin the awkward “it’s-time-to-leave-now-but-I-don’t-know-how-to-get-you-to-stop-talking” episode. We say goodbye to the girl, I’ll call her Daisy for privacy reasons. The man escorts us back to the main road, telling us about his girlfriend who is back in England with her grandchildren for a week, and he gives us some not-needed information on which Go-Go’s are the classiest and trashiest, and sends us on our way.
Though we won’t likely meet again, God had him at the bar that night for a purpose.
(to be continued)
